Kevon Felmine

One week af­ter be­ing elat­ed on the bless­ing of a first grand child, 39-year-old moth­er of three Now­mat­tie Ram­nat-Ram­phal suf­fered a hor­rif­ic death when she was burnt alive, as her house was razed in Av­o­cat on Fri­day night.Ram­nat-Ram­phal, a Guyanese im­mi­grant, was em­ployed as a do­mes­tic work­er. Re­ports stat­ed that the fire oc­curred in Ram­phal's bed­room where she and a male rel­a­tive en­gaged in a con­ver­sa­tion.She was un­able to es­cape and her charred body fell through the floor.Around 2.30 am, a team of of­fi­cers from the Oropouche Po­lice Sta­tion vis­it­ed the scene at St John Trace and Ram­nat-Ram­phal's body was re­moved. Neigh­bours said the wood­en two-storey struc­ture was con­sumed by fire in a mat­ter of min­utes.

Her el­dest child, 22-year-old Aman­da Ram­nat said around 10.30 pm she was rest­ing on her bed with her boyfriend Steve Wil­fred.Aman­da said she ob­served the fire in her moth­er's room through a crack in the wall but when she at­tempt­ed to en­ter the room the door was al­ready ablaze.In a state of fear, Aman­da said she grabbed her sev­en-year-old broth­er Justin and ran out the house.All oth­er oc­cu­pants were able to es­cape ex­cept Ram­nat-Ram­phal who was said to be scream­ing as the blaze con­sumed the house.Aman­da and her broth­er-in-law Vishesh De­o­lal who live next door at­tempt­ed to re-en­ter the house in an ef­fort to res­cue Ram­nat-Ram­phal but by that time the fire was out of con­trol.

A trau­ma­tised Aman­da, who is cur­rent­ly un­em­ployed, sat on a chair at a neigh­bour's home as she gazed at the re­mains of the house where she lived over the past three years. Aman­da re­called: "She screamed out twice and then every­thing just got qui­et. The neigh­bours rushed out in­to the road and con­tact­ed the fire ser­vices who re­spond­ed with­in five min­utes of the call."Wil­fred who re­ceived mi­nor burns to the hands said Ram­nath-Ram­phal was the most joy­ous per­son he knew. He said when he came there, she had the stereo on and was danc­ing around. He said even though res­i­dents said that she drank al­co­hol be­fore she came home, she was not drunk.

Around 11 am yes­ter­day, a team from the Siparia Re­gion­al Cor­po­ra­tion vis­it­ed Aman­da and her broth­er and pre­sent­ed them with a mat­tress, a food ham­per and forms to ac­cess pub­lic grants.Po­lice have de­tained a male rel­a­tive in con­nec­tion with the fire.He was said to have had an ar­gu­ment with Ram­nat-Ram­phal ear­li­er in the day. Al­so, oth­er rel­a­tives said Ram­nat-Ram­phal was con­stant­ly ha­rassed by a for­mer lover to leave the house.She had ear­li­er won a case con­cern­ing the same mat­ter.In the mean­time, Aman­da and Justin have been of­fered refuge at Wil­fred's home in Fyz­abad as po­lice con­tin­ue in­ves­ti­ga­tions.

Shar­ma vis­its fam­i­ly

MP for Fyz­abad Chadresh Shar­ma has of­fered his as­sis­tance to the griev­ing fam­i­ly. Shar­ma said: "Through the chair­man of the Na­tion­al Com­mis­sion for Self Help we are mak­ing arrange­ments to re­pair the house."Arrange­ments through the Min­istry of the Peo­ple are be­ing made for the fu­ner­al," he said.Shar­ma said be­cause Ram­nat-Ram­phal is from Guyana the sit­u­a­tion has to be dealt with care­ful­ly.He added that if po­lice are to in­ves­ti­gate claims of ar­son, the sit­u­a­tion would have to be dealt with dif­fer­ent­ly.He said in the mean­time, they are try­ing their best to as­sist.